Category Archives: Campus

Becoming Penguin, a Performance Walk.

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King Penguin Couple. Photo credit David Stanley (Creative Commons 2.0)

King Penguin Couple. Photo: David Stanley (Creative Commons 2.0)

In your white shirts and black tails, in your navy-blue dresses or in wetsuits and flippers or anything ‘penguin’ from your wardrobe please come and join us on a waddle, a ‘becoming penguin’ performance walk. If you have nothing penguin in your wardrobe, come with a penguin state of mind and we will supply you with some penguin apparel.

As part of Still Waving: Climate Change Theatre Action Aotearoa, performance artist Catherine Bagnall will lead the walk from Parliament grounds up to Massey University Wellington, where the climate change play ‘The Penguins’ will be performed, along with other climate action plays from Aotearoa and the world. Walking from Parliament into the community symbolises the theme of Climate Change Theatre Action 2017 – that there are steps communities can take to act together and make a positive difference, even when governments won’t. And that every step, however small, is important.
It’s free to join the Becoming Penguin performance walk: if you then want to stay for the theatre action show, tickets to see the plays are available by small koha to Generation Zero and can be purchased from https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2017/still-waving-climate-change-theatre-action-aotearoa-2017/wellington
To join ‘Becoming Penguin’, meet at the Cenotaph next to Parliament Grounds at 1pm on Monday October 23.
Catherine Bagnall is an artist whose work focuses on the edges of fashion studies and its intersection with performance practices. Testing the bounds of self through performative acts of ‘dressing up’, her research offers new modes of experience that use performance to explore the possibility of becoming ‘other’, a different species for example. In the context of questions about humanity’s relationship to the planetary ecosystem and how we categorise ‘other’ species, ‘Becoming Penguin’ explores ideas about the end of the Anthropocene and the beginning of the post-human world.
See more about Still Waving: Climate Change Theatre Action Aotearoa 2017 at https://www.facebook.com/events/163701054197372/
Still Waving is part of the worldwide series of CCTA readings and performances of short climate change plays presented biennially in support of the United Nations Conference of the Parties. CCTA is organised globally by the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, NoPassport Theatre Alliance, The Arctic Cycle and Theatre Without Borders. CCTA Aotearoa is brought to you by Massey University School of English & Media Studies, in partnership with Massey University Ngā Pae Māhutonga – the School of Design, Generation Zero, and Pukeahu ki Tua: Think Differently Wellington.

Still Waving: New Voices Climate Action Creative Writing Competition

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Write, inspire and win! As part of our Climate Change Theatre Action 2017 event, ‘Still Waving,’ the Massey University School of English & Media Studies and Pukeahu ki Tua: Think Differently Wellington are proud to announce a climate action creative writing competition for new and emerging writers.

Prizes:

1st place – $300

2nd place – $200

3rd place – $100

 

Thematic guidelines

The creative writing competition aligns with Climate Change Theatre Action’s global theme, which is that “climate action requires a hopeful vision of the future”.

CCTA 2017 asks the question: “How can we turn the challenges of climate change into opportunities?”

We are looking for creative writing that provides hope, inspires positive action, and illuminates individual and collective solutions.  There is still time to change the course of climate change: it is not too late, but it will require a collective will the likes of which planet earth has seldom seen. How can you use your writing, your particular voice, to help people visualise, embrace and achieve that change? What specific images can we find to illuminate why people should care about the environment? How can we move people without preaching to them or becoming didactic?

Politics is a surface in which transformation comes about as much because of pervasive changes in the depths of the collective imagination as because of visible acts, though both are necessary. And though huge causes sometimes have little effect, tiny ones occasionally have huge consequences. . . (Rebecca Solnit)

Genre:

We are accepting five types of entry:

  • Twitterature (tell a story in no more than 140 characters)
  • Flash Fiction 100 Words (tell a story in exactly 100 words – no more and no less)
  • Poetry (any length up to 200 words)
  • Short stories of up to 1200 words.
  • Personal essays of up to 1200 words.

To enter:

Please email your entry in the body of an email to climateactionwriting@gmail.com by 5pm (NZ time) on Friday October 6, 2017.

Entry is open to all new and emerging writers. We take this to mean anyone who has not published a book.  By entering you agree to publication of your entry and your name in social media. You may enter as many different items as you like.  Please include your full name and the city or town you live in, with your entry.

The judge:

We are grateful to Dr Ingrid Horrocks from the School of English & Media Studies for agreeing to judge the Still Waving Climate Writing competition.  Ingrid’s creative publications include two collections of poetry, a number of personal essays, and a genre-bending travel book.

More about Still Waving:

Still Waving, our 2017 Climate Change Theatre Action Aotearoa event, will take place on October 23 at Massey Wellington campus. There will be plays, readings, a performance art installation, and of course the prize-giving announcement of the fabulous winners of this competition!  Still Waving is part of the global Climate Change Theatre Action 2017, which involves 50 selected plays (including two from our school) and more than 180 events in 41 countries. This is the second time we have participated in CCTA and we are delighted to be back! Check it all out at: https://www.facebook.com/events/163701054197372/

Theatre workshop “outside the box” for prisoners

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A two-day workshop with an internationally renowned exponent of theatre that promotes social change has given a group of prisoners at Auckland Prison at Paremoremo a unique forum to share their stories.

The men performed short plays to a select audience, exploring solutions to the challenges they face in prison, from personal safety to mental health.

Ten prisoners took part in the project last week in a partnership between Auckland Prison and Massey University, and led by guest theatre practitioner David Diamond, founder and artistic director of the Vancouver-based Theatre for Living. His approach uses theatrical techniques as a vehicle for individuals and groups to explore controversial or sensitive issues. These are shaped into plays and presented to audiences in an interactive event that encourages new insights and understanding.

The workshop participants addressed issues such as gossip, intimidation and safety with fellow prisoners and staff, privacy and respect between prisoners and Corrections Officers, and isolation and mental health challenges. Under the directorship of Diamond – who is currently in New Zealand as a guest of Massey University to host workshops and as a keynote conference speaker – the men produced three short plays and performed these to 40 invited guests, including prison staff.

Dr Rand Hazou, who lectures in theatre studies at Massey’s Auckland campus in Albany and who spearheaded the partnership with the prison and Diamond’s visit, says the prisoners were “very committed to the process, responsive to the theatre exercises, and were very generous in sharing aspects of their experience with a lot of integrity”.

Mr Diamond says Theatre for Living is about people being the experts in their own lives and being able to use theatre to make change. In workshops, participants get the chance “to experience theatre in a different way – not as something mysterious and inaccessible that is outside their lives, but as a natural language”.

Theatre to rehearse behavioural change

He says the theatre is “a great place to rehearse behavioural change” due to the symbolic nature of its power.

During the workshops, he helped the prisoners to develop “a language of theatre” through group building games, as well as Image Theatre techniques, where participants are asked to create frozen images (tableaux) using their bodies. Through a deeper exploration of what their images represented and the crises they expressed, he worked with them to produce three short plays.

“The men were very flexible and took direction, some of them like seasoned professional actors. This comes, in part, from knowing the material of the plays so deeply,” Diamond says.

He was struck by the power of the plays the men made, rehearsed and performed in a short period of time. “My hope is that the recommendations that came from the Forum [plays] will create at least some movement in the prison.”

One prisoner who took part said: “Participating in the workshop has been so different. Things like these keep my brain alive.”

“Doing the theatre was very ‘outside the box’ for the prison,” says Diamond, “so a big thank you to Rand Hazou who pushed and also the people at the prison who risked accepting the project – and of course the men who engaged so deeply.”

Life changing experience

Diamond was also “very moved” by the haka performed in his honour by the prisoners. “Leaving was difficult after our time together. Their words about carrying this experience with them for the rest of their lives, and my knowledge that I will do the same, remain.”

Dr Hazou says the aims of the workshop were to:

  • Support the on-going engagement in theatre and creativity at Auckland Prison.
  • Provide a creative opportunity for prisoners to learn from a leading international theatre practitioner and cultivate their performance skills.
  • Use theatre to highlight particular issues relevant to the prison community.

Andy Langley, Prison Director of Auckland Prison, said: “Auckland Prison has been honoured to have someone of the stature of David Diamond giving his time to work with a group of prisoners in a thought-provoking way. This kind of creative collaboration contributes to Corrections’ rehabilitative programmes for prisoners to reduce re-offending, and supports prisoners to address their offending behaviour and other challenges they face.”

David Diamond is a keynote at the 2017 Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies (ADSA) Conference: ‘Performing Belonging in the 21st Century’ this week.

Topp Twins ‘striking example’ of power of popular culture

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The Topp Twins use comedy as a means to unsettle ideas around gender, sexuality and what it means to be a New Zealander, according to Dr Nicholas Holm, Massey lecturer and programme leader in Media Studies at the Manawatū campus.

Dr Holm presented a lecture on the Topp Twins at Te Manawa Museum in Palmerston North, which has recently celebrated the opening of a Topp Twins exhibition, running until October 29.

He described the Topp Twins characters as “pantomime fictions sprung to life and walking the fields and streets of provincial New Zealand, and when you encounter them you are asked to enter willingly and gleefully into their skewed world”.

“The Topp Twins are fantastic entertainers who also happen to be radically ahead of their time, and therefore have found ways through popular culture to gain widespread acceptance and even love. As such they exist in a fascinating and productive tension by virtue of their seeming ability to unapologetically reject powerful and normative cultural expectations while also being celebrated as wholesome examples of traditional entertainment.”

Through analysis of the comedy of the Topp Twins, Dr Holm identified the unexpected power of popular culture, as it “can serve as a platform from which to challenge assumptions and accepted ideas about how the world works, what is valuable and what is permitted, who counts in a society, and what it means to belong to a community”.

For more information about the exhibition see http://www.temanawa.co.nz/

Auckland Writers Festival – 16-21 May 2017

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Four writers associated with the School of English and Media Studies are presenting at this week’s Auckland writers’ festival at the Aotea Centre. Do go along to support them if you can!

Tina Makereti: “Poutokomanawa — the Heartpost,” free public lecture on Māori and Pasifika writing  – Wed. 17 May 5 pm

Gina Cole, PhD student in Creative Writing: Gala opening, 18 May 7 pm and “Pacific Tales” 19 May 2:30 pm

Hannah August: Chair for a discussion with Lloyd Geering and A.N. Wilson, 20 May at noon

Sue Wootton, graduate: “Matters Medical” 20 May at 4:30 pm

More information and venues at: http://writersfestival.co.nz

Visiting Fellow – Peking University

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David Gruber was recently chosen as one of ten Visiting Fellows to The New Zealand Centre at Peking University, 2017 (http://nzc.sfl.pku.edu.cn/10VFS.html). As a result, in April, he traveled to Peking University in Beijing and delivered an invited talk entitled, “Neuroscience and the Media.” He discussed his own research into the public understanding of neuroscience and outlined future trajectories of the field area, encouraging more cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research projects. During his visit, he also met with professors from Peking University’s School of Communication and Journalism to promote Massey’s School of English and Media Studies. Toward the end of the week, he had the opportunity to visit an English class where he met with students and gave a thirty minute lecture on the importance of re-writing.

Brian McDonnell publishes fourth book

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Brian McDonnell’s new book on the 2004 New Zealand film In My Father’s Den has been published by boutique UK publisher Kakapo Books which specialises in New Zealand material. In My Father’s Den is widely regarded as one of the most important films ever made in New Zealand and also as one of the boldest and most radical adaptations of a classic New Zealand novel. Dr McDonnell’s book is an extensive, painstakingly researched and copiously illustrated analysis of this key film. It scrutinises Maurice Gee’s 1972 novel In My Father’s Den, which is the source of the film’s story and delineates closely the process by which scriptwriter/director Brad McGann took the book’s core and made it his own, while reimagining its central ideas and characters for the 21st Century. McGann’s brilliance as both a writer and a director are addressed with key sequences selected for closer examination in order to highlight the film’s intricate texture. Brian McDonnell hopes his book will confirm In My Father’s Den as an undisputed classic of New Zealand cinema.

In My Father’s Den is also the first book in a projected series of short books (called New Zealand Film Classics) that are focused studies of single films, rather in the tradition of the famous BFI Classics series. Series Editor is UK academic Dr Ian Conrich and Brian McDonnell is Series Consultant. Each book is devoted to providing a comprehensive appreciation of eminent, momentous and acclaimed New Zealand movies that have been viewed as key texts within the history of New Zealand cinema. It is envisaged that one or two new books in the series will be published yearly, written by local and international academics and other specialists in the field. Among films already chosen to be part of the Film Classics series are: Heavenly Creatures, Came a Hot Friday, Whale Rider, Out of the Blue, Rain, The Piano, Boy, Rewi’s Last Stand, Once Were Warriors, An Angel at My Table, Ngati, Broken Barrier, Sleeping Dogs, Sons for the Return Home, Smash Palace, Bad Blood, No.2.

This is Dr McDonnell’s fourth book about film, his best-known previous work being the Greenwood Press Encyclopedia of Film Noir which he co-wrote with Australian film scholar Geoff Mayer in 2007.

Refugee play wins international award

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A play about the global refugee crisis penned by Massey University theatre lecturer and playwright Associate Professor Angie Farrow has won second place in the International New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest.

Her play, The Politician’s Wife, came second equal among almost 250 entries from all over the world. The judges’ commented: “This brilliantly written script deals with the refugee crisis from many different angles. We wish you great success with this timely script that deserves to be produced in many different venues!”

In its 15th year, the New York-based New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest was developed to bring works of social significance to the attention of producers and artistic directors.

Dr Farrow is delighted by the international recognition, saying there are few opportunities for playwrights to expose their work, in part due to the “ephemeral” nature of the genre. “Once a play has been produced and performed, you really just have the programmes and the memories.”

Since she wrote the work, she feels the play’s theme resonates with even more poignancy now, with Donald Trump elected US president on the basis of his strong anti-immigrant, anti-refugee and anti-Muslim views. These have been echoed in Brexit and in several European election campaigns.

Performed last year in Wellington and Palmerston North – The Politician’s Wife has an Antipodean focus on the refugee crisis. Dr Farrow, who teaches in the School of English and Media Studies at the Manawatū campus, says her work also tells a universal story about how privilege can sometimes make us immune to caring or empathising with the overwhelming suffering of our fellow humans, or can it empower us to respond with compassion!”

Refugee crisis in Berlin an eye-opener

She began writing the play in 2014, following a visit to Berlin on a writer’s residency, at a time when the refugee crisis was reaching new levels as people escaped conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

Being there brought her into contact with the unfolding events and with some of the refugees, as well as those who were helping them. She also witnessed the fear and resentment of some in host countries in reaction to a sudden, large influx of desperate people with different religious and cultural backgrounds.

The desire to explore the issue from multiple perspectives inspired her to write the play. However, translating such an emotionally and logistically complex issue into a piece of theatre forced her to think about what it might mean on an individual, as well as political, level.

Shortlisted for the 2016 Adam NZ Play Award, The Politician’s Wife is an unapologetic response to the global refugee crisis, which has dominated headlines and divided the world.

The play centres on Kim, a woman of privilege – the eponymous politician’s wife – who becomes caught up in the refugee crisis, which – in the play – is not accorded a specific geographic or ethnic label. Torn between her loyalties to her conservative husband and her desire to help displaced people on an offshore island, Kim finds herself unwittingly at the centre of a national scandal. As the drama unfolds, she must take a stance, and the consequences could throw her life, and the lives of those closest to her, into turmoil.

Dr Farrow is currently working on a trilogy of plays about issues affecting young women, focussing on identity, relationships and social media.

She has had international success with other works, including a short play, The Blue Balloon, which won first prize at Toronto’s Inspirato Festival from 400 international entries in 2013 and Best Wildcard Award at the world’s biggest short play festival in Sydney in 2014.

See full results and details of the New Works of Merit Playwriting contest.